"The reaction of the people in Kashmir is actually a referendum. People don't need anyone to represent them; they are representing themselves. India needs freedom from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs freedom from India".
That was word-by-word the excerpt in its originality from Arundhati Roy, the writer who made it big with small things. When I read her last (the quote above), she was upto making it bigger with big things. And what big thing could it have been than the "biggest" of them all - Kashmir. Kashmir is like the bone of contention between nationalism and outright treason against our motherlands. That is, to say, both in India and Pakistan with equal vigour. Indeed its so high above the rest in our governments' priority list that its only too natural that national growth and development interests remain captive to this contention even as time flies by unutilized.
It's not uneasy to be opinionated against a quote like this one. It hurts at the root of our national spirit. The spirit we vow to live and die for every other day even as we fight amongst ourselves for everything from recognition of religious and regional superiority to water-sharing, language and narrow regional gains in national policy decisions and implementations.
That makes me wonder about the very basis of this notion - "Nationalism". What exactly is nationalism? Is it name for the madness that calls for being vindictive over abstract notions of boundaries, being vulnerable to an inherently childish sense of possessiveness, dancing to the tune of inflated collective ego?
Compassion towards our own tribe is probably the most basic of human behavioral patterns. Not many of us fake the seething pain deep inside our well-hardened exterior, when, in front of our eyes, injustice is meted out to an innocent or someone suffers from hunger or pain. In their original avatar, these senses do not choose to be selective. Yet, there is something in our upbringing that ensures that as we grow up and "mature", the intensity of that feeling diminishes outwardly from the concentric spheres of our associations - relational, cultural, territorial, religious. Which is what creates illusions of self-righteousness and trains our sense tentacles to be selectively sensitive to human sufferings. We let our minds get hijacked by a vexed sense of belonging. Sometimes, we call that Nationalism, at other times, our Holy Religious Duty or Regional or Cultural pride. And painted in those colours, we profess overtures that we, in our normal senses may easily realize, are masochistic - causing as much pain and sufferings to the true us as to the intended subjects.
It's understandably the very process of evolution that impregnates in us an eternal desire to win. But, is winning all about overpowering or proving superiority ? Can't we win by striving to be better over others in a healthy competition of growth - a growth that is inclusive and all-encompassing - a competition that ensures there is no real loser?
In the blunt language of commerce, just how cost effective is our current Kashmir model? Billions of rupees have been channeled into it just to retain its territorial integration with India. Billions more have been diverted from top-priority projects in other parts of India for showcasing infrastructural projects much to the chagrin of the separatists, who leave no stone unturned to derail them before they reach their logical end. Yet billion more have been expended to run
showcased democratic institutions none of which have any effective control over its populace, which continues to grow distasteful of its Indian association and be vulnerable to seccesionist traps, even as an overly disproportionate set of defence personnel man the nooks and corners of the state to ensure people's token submission to Indian sovereignty, often laying down their precious lives for protecting the acres of lands that they as fellow Indians can never have a claim to.
If half the money expended in Kashmir over the last one decade, with no visible gain, was diverted to a rightful expectant, say Mumbai (did you know how much Mumbai contributes to the national exchequer every year), most of its infrastructural problem would have long been solved. If half the defence allotment for Kashmir were allocated in rural India and the high-risk, fast-track implementation expertise of BRO (Border Road Organisation) were focussed for the development of roads, railways and irrigation systems, wouldn't we have done more justice to those hapless rural Indians who still vow in the name of nationalism, despite six decades of no real gain out of it.
I despise Arundhati Roy for her desparate, populist tricks to news headlines. But part of the point she raised this time is noteworthy - "India needs freedom from Kashmir". Just because it slaps our well-groomed concept of nationalism on the face, it should not be rejected outright. We definitely need an introspection and revisit our Kashmir model. But the way Congress, BJP and all other major political parties reacted, I don't see any sign of that. That makes me ask one simple question - just how nationalistic is our nationalism?
That was word-by-word the excerpt in its originality from Arundhati Roy, the writer who made it big with small things. When I read her last (the quote above), she was upto making it bigger with big things. And what big thing could it have been than the "biggest" of them all - Kashmir. Kashmir is like the bone of contention between nationalism and outright treason against our motherlands. That is, to say, both in India and Pakistan with equal vigour. Indeed its so high above the rest in our governments' priority list that its only too natural that national growth and development interests remain captive to this contention even as time flies by unutilized.
It's not uneasy to be opinionated against a quote like this one. It hurts at the root of our national spirit. The spirit we vow to live and die for every other day even as we fight amongst ourselves for everything from recognition of religious and regional superiority to water-sharing, language and narrow regional gains in national policy decisions and implementations.
That makes me wonder about the very basis of this notion - "Nationalism". What exactly is nationalism? Is it name for the madness that calls for being vindictive over abstract notions of boundaries, being vulnerable to an inherently childish sense of possessiveness, dancing to the tune of inflated collective ego?
Compassion towards our own tribe is probably the most basic of human behavioral patterns. Not many of us fake the seething pain deep inside our well-hardened exterior, when, in front of our eyes, injustice is meted out to an innocent or someone suffers from hunger or pain. In their original avatar, these senses do not choose to be selective. Yet, there is something in our upbringing that ensures that as we grow up and "mature", the intensity of that feeling diminishes outwardly from the concentric spheres of our associations - relational, cultural, territorial, religious. Which is what creates illusions of self-righteousness and trains our sense tentacles to be selectively sensitive to human sufferings. We let our minds get hijacked by a vexed sense of belonging. Sometimes, we call that Nationalism, at other times, our Holy Religious Duty or Regional or Cultural pride. And painted in those colours, we profess overtures that we, in our normal senses may easily realize, are masochistic - causing as much pain and sufferings to the true us as to the intended subjects.
It's understandably the very process of evolution that impregnates in us an eternal desire to win. But, is winning all about overpowering or proving superiority ? Can't we win by striving to be better over others in a healthy competition of growth - a growth that is inclusive and all-encompassing - a competition that ensures there is no real loser?
In the blunt language of commerce, just how cost effective is our current Kashmir model? Billions of rupees have been channeled into it just to retain its territorial integration with India. Billions more have been diverted from top-priority projects in other parts of India for showcasing infrastructural projects much to the chagrin of the separatists, who leave no stone unturned to derail them before they reach their logical end. Yet billion more have been expended to run
showcased democratic institutions none of which have any effective control over its populace, which continues to grow distasteful of its Indian association and be vulnerable to seccesionist traps, even as an overly disproportionate set of defence personnel man the nooks and corners of the state to ensure people's token submission to Indian sovereignty, often laying down their precious lives for protecting the acres of lands that they as fellow Indians can never have a claim to.
If half the money expended in Kashmir over the last one decade, with no visible gain, was diverted to a rightful expectant, say Mumbai (did you know how much Mumbai contributes to the national exchequer every year), most of its infrastructural problem would have long been solved. If half the defence allotment for Kashmir were allocated in rural India and the high-risk, fast-track implementation expertise of BRO (Border Road Organisation) were focussed for the development of roads, railways and irrigation systems, wouldn't we have done more justice to those hapless rural Indians who still vow in the name of nationalism, despite six decades of no real gain out of it.
I despise Arundhati Roy for her desparate, populist tricks to news headlines. But part of the point she raised this time is noteworthy - "India needs freedom from Kashmir". Just because it slaps our well-groomed concept of nationalism on the face, it should not be rejected outright. We definitely need an introspection and revisit our Kashmir model. But the way Congress, BJP and all other major political parties reacted, I don't see any sign of that. That makes me ask one simple question - just how nationalistic is our nationalism?
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